July 3

July 3, 1844 saw the death of the last two Great Auks, when both were killed on Eldey Island, which sits off the coast of Iceland[i]. All surviving reports indicate that they tasted like chicken.

[i] Iceland has been continually inhabited since 874 a.d. when Norwegian Ingólfur Arnarson started a colony there, which was to become the city of Reykjavík, which is the world’s northernmost national capital.